Can a former employer’s alleged misconduct defeat a request for injunctive relief against former employees when those departing workers take confidential information and clients to another employer? A federal appeals court recently addressed this question and decided not to apply the “unclean hands” doctrine against the employer in a trade secrets case, clearing the way for the injunction.

Many defendants attempt to defend against claims of trade secret misappropriation by asserting that they never actually used or disclosed the information at issue. Based on a recent ruling by a federal district court in New York, however, that defense may sometimes be insufficient to defeat the claim. This ruling is the latest in a series of court decisions recognizing that merely acquiring a trade secret through improper means is enough to violate the Defend Trade Secrets Act.

In an age of high digital mobility in which a company’s most valuable competitive asset is often their digital playbook data, email enterprise vaults, anti-deletion programming and key stroke surveillance software are a must to protect a company’s most valuable trade secret information.

Corporate espionage is a real threat that could be perpetrated by any employee or other insider at any time. How do you spot the red flags in real time before the damage is done? It's not a perfect science, but here are some tips that can help prevent unethical employees from taking the fruits of your intellectual capital and unfairly diverting business away.

The simplest, most valuable, yet commonly overlooked piece of advice any trade secret owner can receive is this: Protect yours trade secrets! It seems crazy that this simple advice warrants repeating, but apparently, it does, particularly in Silicon Valley where billions of dollars have been spent researching and developing electric and autonomous vehicle technology.

Employers who operate in a multi-state environment that seek to enforce restrictive covenants across state lines face numerous challenges in attempting to comply with the law of various jurisdictions and protecting their interests. Choice-of-law and choice-of-forum issues often times prove to be outcome determinative.

Companies need to follow best recruiting and hiring practices when bringing on a new employee, particularly from a competitor, to ensure that the employee is not taking with them trade secrets from the prior employer, otherwise a third-party misappropriation lawsuit may be around the corner resulting in expensive and time-consuming litigation.